The DN&SR Pages

The story of the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway is a fascinating study in ambition, manipulation and failure. The full story is too complex to recount here, but essentially, a small company's dream to build a line that connected the North with Southampton drowned in a much larger railway game between the GWR and the LSWR.

After much back and forth, the GWR ended up operating the line from Didcot to Winchester, with trains being forwarded from there to Southampton by the LSWR (and later the SR). The GWR part of the line was divided into two sections, the Northern section stretching from Didcot to Newbury, and the Southern section from Newbury to Winchester.

Compared to its neighbours, the M&SWJR and the S&D, the DN&SR has received rather little attention from modellers, and very few layouts seem to depict this line. Yet is has some considerable scope for modelling:

For one thing, the railway had a very distinctive style of is own: For instance, the two-storey stations were quite unlike anything else you'll find on most GWR lines, and can help make a layout that is a little different from all the rest, yet easily identifiable. Many still survive as abandoned or residential house, and so can be visited and photographed if you're into that level of detail. An example can be seen in David Wainwrights photo of Whitchurch station building (see gallery on your right).

The line also had some interesting trackplans. In particular, there was a recurring pattern of trackplan (see example above) on many of the through stations that offers some quite interesting scope for layout operation. Moreover, the use of bay platforms at both Didcot and Newbury may be compelling to those who have very litle space but would like to model a cross-country line.

The history of the line also offers several "might-have-been" scenarios if you don't want to model an exact prototype. For the branchline modeller, there's a nice little line to East Illsley which never materialized, as well as several proposed branches to link up with the surrounding GWR and LSWR lines. Apart from that, there's the actual independent line from Winchester to Southampon, which was commenced but never completed, as well as the more fanciful proposals for extensions towards Portsmouth and Bournemouth.

Moreover, there is scope for GWR/SR joint operations here. The two companies exchanged stock at Winchester, but a fictious joint station elsewhere on the line would also be quite plausible.

Thanks to Railwayana Collectors Network and David Wainwright
for providing photos for this page